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Class F I o ^ 



Hnnk- ,M5H^ 



(MiHSKNTKI) liY 



CENTENNIAL SERMONS 



ON THE HISTORY OF 



The Cente[[ Congijegatio^al Chui[ch, 



OF 



MERIDEN, CONN., 



PREACHED IN THAT CHURCH 



Sundays, October ist and 22D, 1876, 



BY 



EDWARD HUNGERFORD, 

PASTOR OF THE CHURCH. 



HARTFORD: 

PRESS OP THE CASE, LOCKWOOD & BRAINARD COMPANY. 

1877. 






Gift 




SERMON. 



Zechariah 4:10. "For who hath despised the day of small 
things?" 

I AM going to lead you back, my friends, this after- 
noon, to the day of small things. In a very hasty 
way — altogether too hasty a way, I propose that we 
follow, through nearly one hundred and fifty years, 
the path which the feet of your fathers have worn 
into the soil, until that path brings us to this place 
where we worship to-day. 

It seems to me especially fitting that the pastor of 
this church should go back into those early years. 
The history of neither of the Congregational churches 
in this city can be complete without those anteced- 
ents, out of which the life of both has sprung. As 
two branches of one family, now living apart, but 
with no family feuds between them, we hail and vene- 
rate a common ancestry, as we hold to one and the 
same Congregational polity, in which we serve one 
Lord. 

But more than this : I should not be true to the 
position which your love assigns me, as pastor of 
this church, if I were to forget that the small begin- 
nino:s of all the church life in all Meriden centered a 
century and a half ago in a place not far from this 
spot ; that it was all removed hither soon after the 



close of the first quarter of a century ; so that right 
around this old homestead cluster the traditions of 
over a hundred and twenty years. Hither your 
fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers have 
turned their faces Sabbath after Sabbath, from gene- 
ration to generation. Here, within the sound of my 
voice, a whole line of pastors, in unbroken succes- 
sion, has preached the gospel. First, Hall, then 
Hubbard, and Willard, and Ripley, and Hinsdale, 
and Perkins, and Stevens, and so on down the line. 
To this place, in the olden time, the bodies of your 
fathers and your mothers were brought for the last 
service on earth, before they were borne to that wind- 
swept graveyard on yonder hill, or to that still nearer 
one under the trees. On this very spot many of you 
who no longer worship here, were baptized; and here 
many of you stood when you first named the name 
of Christ. Around this place have gathered, in the 
last century and a quarter, the rumors and excite- 
ments of our country's great and terrible wars, and 
the new^s of many battles has been discussed in this 
center, to which the people gathered in all times of 
great commotion. Here great questions of public 
policy have been discussed from the pulpit, and the 
discussion has been prolonged by the people ; while 
around these very doors the passions of men have 
raged in open-handed violence, over which at last 
right has triumphed and peace has spread her wings. 
Oh, sacred spot ! Oh, holy and hallowed memories ! 
Lift up your heads, dear friends, in the just pride of 
such traditions, and fail not to honor the very dust 
whereon your church is built as dust consecrated by 



5 

the feet which have trodden it, and by the stirring 
memories which history has written in it for ever. 

Let us turn, then, to the day of small things. 

On the closing Sunday of October, one hundred 
and forty-seven years ago this month, at the hour of 
morning service, you might have seen a little mixed 
company of young and elderly people gathering on 
the southwestern slope of yonder height, which we 
still call " Meeting-house Hill," and gravely stepping 
in family knots from under the trees (which in this 
season are clothed in colors caught from the sunsets,) 
into a little church, only thirty feet by thirty, no 
larger, therefore than many a country school-house. 
But they came out from under the autumnal glory 
into the glory of the house of the Lord. It was a 
very precious house to them : built out of hardy 
sacrifices with sturdy toil. 

It is very still up here on this Sunday morning ; 
if, perchance, it is one of our gentler October days. 
There has been no sound of a bell to break the quiet. 
Steeple or bell this house has none. There has been 
no clatter of carriages ; these people have come on 
foot, or at best on horseback, — a father in the saddle, 
with a mother and child mounted on the pillion 
behind ; or, perhaps, a father walking by the side of 
his horse while the whole family cling to the saddle 
and the mother's skirts. Far away to the south the 
old home settlement of their fathers in Wallimrford 

o 

street caught their eyes as they turned to enter the 
house of God, and the whole country was bathed in 
rest. 

Inside the church, these fathers and mothers, in 

T* 



plain homespun, or possibly, in case of some mother 
— if the vanity of the world and the temptation 
of so public a place were too much to be resisted 
— in a silk gown which had been her mother's, were 
ranged on benches, the women on one side and the 
men on the other, in grave rows, waiting in silence 
for the service to begin. 

In that service there is neither organ nor choir. 
The singing is congregational. The whole service is 
simple and earnest, consisting of prayers and hymns 
and spiritual songs, and the preaching from a text. 

I was going to say — together with the reading of the 
word — but it is a singular fact that at this time *' in 
New England reading a chapter in the Bible," as a 
set form, "in public worship, was looked upon as a long 
step in the direction of a liturgy ;" and our fathers 
hated liturgies as a relic of popery. " Dr. Hopkins, 
who ventured upon the dangerous feat (of reading the 
Scriptures in public worship), during his ministry in 
Western Massachusetts, (1743 — 1769) brought on 
himself a storm of opposition." 

It was a small beginning, but to one who has seen 
anything of the frontier life of our national growth, 
the picture which I give you here is only the oft-re- 
peated story of the first church built in many a new 
settlement, during the past two hundred years, with 
like toil, and in like simplicity, and holding, for a 
shorter or longer period, a like simple worship. There 
is, however, this difference. At that time the primi- 
tive character of worship was insisted on as matter 
of principle. The circumstance and show of our 
modern worship have won their way, through much 
opposition, against the older methods. 



These people who sit waiting in this October still- 
ness for the service to begin, are people of other 
habits, and other thoughts in many respects, from 
ourselves. We differ from them in some things which 
touch the religious life, and in some of these things we 
differ for the worse. But, after all, we are more like 
them in religion than in anything else. To the essen- 
tials of their religious faith, and to the spirit of their 
church polity, and to their ideas of religious liberty, we 
still hold. But in matters of state the change has been 
revolutionary. These fathers and mothers of ours 
are true and loyal subjects of King George the second. 
They are Englishmen in near descent, and are proud 
of being under the English king. 

The mother country is the center of their civil life 
and thought, and in the jDrayer which will soon go up 
to heaven, our gracious sovereign the king of these 
colonies will, no doubt, be conscientiously and loyally 
remembered. 

The republic has not yet been born. The Declara- 
tion of Independence is still nearly fifty years in the 
dim future, not yet thought of by one of these loyal 
subjects of the throne, as even a remote possibility. 
The wise policy of the adviser of King George in 
fostering the trade of the colonies, and avoiding taxa- 
tion, was delaying the day of struggle, and, although 
in discussion about matters of royal prerogative, and 
rights of trade, the jealousy of England was some- 
times manifested in hinted fears lest by fostering the 
numbers and wealth of the inhabitants of the colo- 
nies they " were creating formidable antagonists to 



8 

English industry, and nursing a disposition to rebel- 
lion," nevertheless, at this time neither rebellion nor 
a republic had been born in the thought even of the 
colonies. At this moment the thoughts of these 
fathers went in politics little beyond such matters, as 
the attempt of England here in Connecticut, to per- 
petuate the English laws of inheritance in favor of 
the oldest son ; or, in religion, they were occupied with 
the church difficulty, now going on among their neigh- 
bors in Guilford, over the Rev. Thomas Ruggles ; or 
in politics, again, with the strife, at that time prolonged 
in Massachusetts, between the General Assembly and 
the Crown about the salary of the governor whom 
England sent over to look after her interests in that 
colony. 

If I seem to go out of my way to speak of these 
things here, it is because the simple mention of the 
date at which this church began its life conveys noth- 
ing to our minds except the element of time. That 
which concerns us is to know what those fathers were 
thinking of, and how they lived in the days of small 
things. We must connect the date with the social, 
political, and religious circumstances which alone con- 
stituted the founding of a church, an important event, 
and which introduce us to the daily life of the people 
we commemorate. 

In regard to religion, these fathers stood on the eve 
of great events which were powerfully to affect their 
religious life. 

Previous to this time our churches had been much 
engaged with the forms of church government. But 
history tells us that both in this country and in Eng- 



land, the spirit of piety, and the practical religious 
life had greatly declined. 

One of your former pastors, Mr. Perkins, says, we 
may conclude with almost entire certainty, that Meri- 
den did not differ much in these respects from the 
rest of New England. But a change was coming. 
One month later, that is, in November of this same 
year, John Wesley, in England, then twenty-six years 
old, joined his brother Charles at Oxford, where the 
Holy Club was formed, and the foundations of that 
great movement which has made Wesley's name re- 
vered and loved throughout the Christian world, were 
baptized by the name of Methodist. Another man, 
who was destined to exert a mighty influence on our 
American churches, George Whitefield, lacked at this 
time, but one month of being fifteen years of age, 
and in eleven years more, or in 1740, at the early age 
of twenty-six, he was to preach to vast crowds in the 
cities and villages of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, 
and Connecticut. Here also, in this same month of 
October, in this little church on Meeting House Hill, 
or more likely from the steps in front of it, owing to 
the crowds which everywhere came together when he 
spoke, he was to stir the religious thought and heart 
of Meriden. 

One more man, whose name was to be identified 
with the great religious awakening, soon to come over 
the churches, Jonathan Edwards, was also at this time, 
and in this month of October, twenty-six years old. 
Two years earlier, he had been settled at Northamp- 
ton, where, under his preaching, was to begin only six 
years from the founding of our church, that series of 



lO 

revivals, whose waves rolled to and fro through our 
churches for seven years, and on the full tide of which 
Whitefield preached. 

So much for the place of this little company of 
morning worshipers in the political and religious 
history of our land. As to their material and social 
circumstances, they were for the most part plain 
farmers, who themselves or their fathers, toward the 
close of the previous century, or about fifty years 
before, had begun to occupy lands in what is now 
the town of Meriden. For such families as lay in 
the southern half of our town, the church at Wal- 
lingford had been the nearest place of worship. The 
way was long, the roads miserable, so that, with the 
increase of settlements in this section, a separate 
place of worship became a necessity. In 1724, "the 
north farmers," i. e. those in this section, which was 
then within the limits of Wallingford, were permitted 
by special vote in Wallingford town meeting, to 
" hire a minister for four months this winter on their 
own charge." Thus one hundred and fifty-two years 
ago our fathers held their first regular preaching 
services. In the following year, 1725, they formed 
themselves into a separate ecclesiastical society under 
the name of Meriden. For two years more they 
maintained preaching only in the winter, and that in 
private houses. In summer they could go down to 
Wallingfgrd. In 1727 this little church on the hill 
was built. So lately as the twenty-second of this 
present month of October, 1729, these worshipers 
had now, at length, organized themselves into a 
Christian church on a day specially set apart as a 
day of fasting and prayer. 



II 

Thus slowly, step by step, — thus wearily and with 
sacrifice, — thus earnestly and devoutly, did our fath- 
ers plant themselves here as a Christian community, 
the center of which was evermore to be the Christian 
church. They were the men who had cleared away 
the forests for the first cultivated farms, and they 
were clearing them still. Selecting what seemed to 
them the most promising sites for future homes, they 
had built and were still building their houses in what 
was only fifty years before a wilderness, lying dan- 
gerously remote, on account of Indian wars, from 
the settlements at Wallingford on the one side and 
Hartford on the other. 

The surroundings of the little meeting-house were 
still wild. It was perched up there on the hill far 
aw^ay from any of the centers into which our fathers 
of Meriden had settled. Looking dow^n from it the 
eye swept a large territory in every direction, which 
was then without a village, and must have been mostly 
covered with forests, through wdiich rough roads led to 
distant and widely separated clusters of farm-houses. 
Broad Street was probably at that time without a 
house. Over all of what we call the older part of 
Meriden, thickly crowded now with dwellings, stores, 
public buildings, and manufactories, there was noth- 
ing to mark the site of the future city. To the 
east, around those swampy lands which lie south 
of the Middletown road, half way between us and 
the mountains, lay a little settlement, which, taking 
its name from the swamp, was called " Dogs' Misery," 
to note the fact that in those dense thickets, wild 
animals, taking refuge, were able to baffle the dogs of 



12 

hunters in their pursuit, or turned upon them when 
driven to bay and tore them to death. 

Far away to the north, on the Old Colony road, a 
number of farmers had settled, beyond the present 
glass works, up as far as the Old Stone House which 
first bore the name of Meriden. In that section 
there were people enough to make an important 
move. Fourteen persons signed a petition, which, 
touching so large a matter, had to be addressed " To 
the Honorable, the Governor and Council and house 
of representatives, in General Cort assembled, in his 
Majesties colony of Connecticut, att New Haven, 8th 
of October, 1724." The people represent that they 
" are compelled to drive unruly cattell nere 6 or 9 
miles" before they can find a pound. They pray 
" that there may be order for a pound near ye Meri- 
den or Stone House," and for this they solemnly 
aver that they will " ever pray." It is to be hoped 
they got the pound. To the" southwest also there 
was a settlement, at Hanover, which had been laid 
out into village lots as early as 1689. Down in the 
valley at the Corner, or in what was then called 
Pilgrims' Harbor, there was also the beginning of a 
settlement. 

The distribution of these little groups of farmers 
at remote quarters of the town, had made the ques- 
tion of the location of the first meeting-house one of 
great difficulty. Discussion ran high, — the interests 
of the several sections were hard to adjust. But, 
strangely enough, as it seems to us, in view of the 
present distribution of population, neither the Cor- 
ner, nor yet Hanover, nor the farmers of the north, 



13 

were strong enough to overrule the then thriving 
community of "Dogs' Misery." It won the day. 
The Center had no existence and was not taken into 
the account. The timbers were gathered on the 
southwestern slope of the hill ; but those who con- 
tended for a more westerly location brought their 
teams in the night, and, with something of Yankee 
fun and grit mixed with the work, dragged the timbers 
over the little brook, which still runs at the western 
foot of Meeting-house Hill, to a point near the Avery 
Hall place on Curtiss street. They showed their grit 
and they had their fun ; but the very men and teams 
which had sweated at the work through the night, 
had to sweat the next day over the work of drawing 
the timbers back again. We do not learn that any 
feud was perpetuated from this discussion. 

The little congregation worshiped, and grew in 
the humble church, during twenty-eight years, from 
the time of its building. There, without fires in the 
cold winters, and through long services, the good wo- 
men sat patiently wrapped in furs and mufflers, while 
the men stamped their feet to keep them warm. To 
have heated a church would have been a desecratins; 
luxury. It would have been a soft piety that could 
not endure any and all degrees of temperature in the 
house of God. So the wind swept over the little 
building, and the snow piled its drifts around it until 
the spring came with its first robin song, and the 
good people basked in the sun again, before the door. 
Then the summer flung out its leaves over the forest, 
and October turned them to crimson and yellow and 
brown again, and the autumnal ingathering of fruit 
2 



14 

closed with its Thanksgiving feast, in the scattered 
farm-houses, where broad-mouthed fire places, piled 
high with logs, filled the kitchens and parlors with 
light that shone out through the windows into the 
night, while the flames roared and crackled up the 
chimney throat, and apples, and cider, and nuts, and 
country games went round, until the tallow-dipped 
candles burned low in the sockets of the candlesticks, 
and the ashes were raked over the still glimmering 
heaps of coals to keep the fire till morning. 

The number of those who were first joined in the 
covenant of the church was fifty-one, of whom twen- 
ty-one were men and thirty were women. 

The names which appear in this list are for the 
most part names which have been and still are identi- 
fied with the history of the town — the names of your 
fathers — the Royces, the Yales, the Merriams, the 
Fosters, Collins, and Hough, and Ives, and Way, and 
Curtiss, and Camp. The number of families in the 
place in 1724, five years before the organization of 
the church, were only thirty-five, and it had probably 
not much increased in 1729. As you have seen that 
those thirty-five families were divided between some 
four different sections of the town, there could have 
been nothing really approaching the pretentions of 
a village, throughout the present area of Meriden. 

The little church grew. Mr. Perkins, whose his- 
torical sketch, prepared with great care, and published 
in 1849, w^ll always be the starting point for the study 
of our history, says that so far as he can learn, for 
"year after year, not more than one or two were united 
to the church anniially." But in this he is mistaken. 



15 

The record shows that in 1730, twenty-seven were re- 
ceived, and in 173 1, at least eight, and though the 
record is confused at this point, perhaps nineteen 
were received in the latter year. During the thirty- 
six years following the organization of the church, two 
hundred and fifty-three persons were added to the list 
of the original membership. This is an addition of 
seven a year, as an average for the whole period. It 
seems that the little church, in common with many 
others in New England, felt the great wave of revival 
in the times of Edwards and Whitefield ; for I find 
in the year 1741, after Whitefield had preached in the 
fall of 1740, on the steps, thirty-one were united to 
the church. 

But we dare not leave out of the account of this 
rapid growth, the severe and strong labors of that first 
pastor of the church, whom we shall find, if we go 
back to that October service, at which we began our 
history ; standing in the first month of his settlement, 
small of stature, a youth of twenty-one years, to whom 
it is to be given to see a strong church rise out of 
these small beginnings, whose work it is to be, touched 
by the Spirit of God and of liberty, to lead this young 
flock out of the wilderness and through the storm into 
a larger place. 

Theophilus Hall was a man of powerful intellect, 
and of large heart. As I have searched among old 
papers, it has been an inspiration to come into con- 
tact wdth the earnestness, and the vigor of this man, 
who began to preach a hundred and fifty years ago. 
If you picture your early fathers, dear friends, as sitting 
•in listless attitudes, dozing through long discourses — 



i6 

up there on the hill — you are wide of the mark. The 
uninteresting preacher, if you have ever had him, 
was of later date. This man's words flashed ; his 
short, quick, clean cut sentences went to the mark. 
His familiar style with its "don't," and "won't," and 
"can't," and its "you'll," makes it easy to listen, while 
his sentiments belong more to a future age than to 
the one in which he speaks. Apt illustrations and 
sudden surprises give zest to the flow of his thought. 
He is direct, personal, and eloquent. I do not hesi- 
tate to say, that if he stood in one of our pulpits to- 
day, he would stand there as a thoroughly popular 
preacher, whom men would love to hear preach, and 
would love to criticise when he should be through 
preaching. He knew no fetters. He believed in re- 
ligious liberty as distinguished from ecclesiastical 
bonds and oppressions ; he believed in civil liberty 
and was bold to speak it ; he believed in liberty of 
thought ; and he believed and did not fear to preach 
that doctrine of love which goes down into the heart 
of the practical christian life — a life like Christ's. Of 
those who talk much of religion, but know little of the 
practical part he cries — " Such are they that are mak- 
ing the religion of Jesus Christ to consist only in a 
heated imagination, in trances, visions, and enthusias- 
tic flights and raptures ; that are affecting party names 
and tei'ms valuing themselves thereon, imposing their 
own sentiments upon others, and stigmatizing those 
that can't conform to them or pronounce their darling 
Shibboleths." " No better are they that are casting 
a slight upon holiness and sanctity, good works and 
obedience to the commands of Christ as absolutely << 



necessary terms — prerequisite to our acceptance with 
God. Such talk as this, is it not against the crown 
and dignity of heaven ?" To those who cry against 
works and preach a passive faith, he answers : '* Is not 
believing as much doing and acting as any other duty ? 
I knov/ not why the word (works) is re- 
stricted to bodily exercise The love 

of God and repentance of sin are as much works and 
acts of obedience as any external duty whatsoever. 
And is not faith the same ? 

"Saving faith is the submission of the whole man 
to Jesus Christ as our Lord and Master." 

And here are things, touching the subject of faith, 
I have wished to say and have never dared to say 
them. He said them more than a hundred years 
ago. "There are those," says he, "who have a hope 
in God, and if you'll inquire into the reason of it 
they'll boldly tell you, * We know we are sinners, 
but Christ has died to save such ; there is merit 
enough in Him ; He is a whole Saviour ; and our 
whole dependence is on the righteousness and merits 
of Jesus Christ.' " Then turning to his hearers, he 
cries : " but you'll say, * all this is nothing but pre- 
sumption, a false hope and trust.' " " I know it well 
enough," he answers ; " but all hope and trust in 
God will be no better if there is nothing else." Bold 
words, dear friends, but true. Then, addressing him- 
self to one who asks : " Is not this a legal way of 
justification.^" he cries: "I answer, legal or illegal, 
it matters not, if it be the way the Gospel establishes 
and Christ and His apostles preached." 

Do you wish for more t "A principle of obedi- 
2* 



i8 

ence, a divine conformity, is absolutely necessary to 
acceptance with God. Can it possibly be otherwise ? 
Are there any contraries in Nature greater than sin 
and holiness ? Can a swinish nature, whose whole 
delight is in the filth of sin, relish the pure joys of 
heaven ? " 

His plainness, and his great liberality, and his 
eloquence, all come out in the sermon on the death 
of Rev. Isaac Stiles, of North Haven, preached 
June 1st, 1760. In speaking of the righteous, he 
says : " What great blessings to the world such are. 
All men are not blessings to the world ; some are 
the foremost judgments and the greatest plagues on 
the earth. Their lives are prolonged in judgment, 
and it is a mercy to the world when they are taken 
out of it." Then, after illustrating, he goes on : 
" But, O, 'tis good men — not such as wear religion 
only as a cloak to cover their deformities ; or make 
use of it as an engine of cruelty, or a handle to serve 
vile purposes ; nor every party zealot that thinks 
himself holier than others, is for caUing fire from 
heaven upon all that differ from him ; — but right 
doivn honest, upright men, that are the greatest bless- 
ings under heaven. . . .These are the gems and pearls 
of the earth." And in the same sermon, this burst 
of eloquence on death: "What joy to leave the 
stormy ocean and enter into port ! To come off from 
the field of battle with trophies of victory ! Much 
greater, yea, joy unspeakable and full of glory, to 
leave all the troubles of this world for peace and joy 
in the heavenly ! Blessed soul, that exchanges cor- 
ruption for incorruption ; this crazy body for one 



19 

furnished like Christ's glorious bodv ; and this mor- 
tal life for a crown of glory that fadeth not away ! 
' O, death, where is thy sting !' " 

Great soul ! No wonder the people loved him ; no 
wonder the church grew ; no wonder in 1755 the house 
was too small ; and, after twenty-eight years, they 
built the preacher a larger church, near where this one 
now stands, — a church which weathered the storms 
of the Revolution, and looked down on the changes 
of Meriden life and population for seventy-six years. 
No wonder, too, that one who spoke so well, but so 
keenly, found his share of enemies, and criticisms, 
and pastoral trials. No matter how conciliatory his 
course, no matter how tenderly he spoke, — and his 
words were sometimes like the words of a lover, — 
there were those who would gladly have thwarted 
him in his efforts. When Dr. Dana, pastor of the 
mother church in Wallingford, was put under the ban 
of the consociation, and a bitter attempt was made 
to throw him out of his pulpit, on the charge of 
heretical doctrine, the pastor of this church stood by 
him and invited him to his pulpit. For this act of 
liberty, as well as, it would seem, out of opposition to 
the sentiments of the pastor, an attempt was made 
to call Mr. Hall to account before the association of 
the county. I find on the record an entry of a very 
full church meeting on the 24th day of May, 1762, 
to the effect that, " after solemn prayer and supplica- 
tion made to Almighty God, the complaint against 
the pastor of this church, given to the association 
of New Haven County, and signed by Ebenezer 
Prindle, Gideon Ives junior and Noah Yale, was laid 
before the church." 



20 



It seems probable that the complaint before the 
association urged against Mr. Hall heretical interpre- 
tations of the gospel and the crime of exchanging 
with his neighbor of the Wallingford church. The 
Meriden church met the case promptly, stood by its 
pastor, declared in the " most unanimous manner " that 
the complainants had, for a great number of years past, 
appeared uneasy and dissatisfied with the preaching 
of the word ; had been wont to take it up in a sense 
contrary to the acceptation of the people in general ; 
that there was no just ground for their complaint ; 
that it seemed designed to disturb the peace and 
quiet of the church ; and that the preaching of Mr. 
Dana was acceptable and agreeable. Thus flatly did 
the church rebuke the men who looked for an occa- 
sion to break the strength of the pastor. The church 
went before the association and the affair seems to 
have been dropped. 

The records of this period are very scanty, and are 
much taken up with matters of discipline, which in 
our earlier history was more faithfully administered 
than now, and took cognizance of matters such as we 
should be very likely to pass by. Lest some here 
might possibly be nearly enough related to the per- 
sons concerned in one curious case of discipline to 
be disturbed at the mention of their full names, I 
will 'only say, that in the year 1745 there was a 
complaint against certain members whose Christian 
names were, Enos, Benjamin, John, Samuel, Noah, 
David, and another David, who were all suspended 
on account of disorders committed in the night time. 
The case of these persons, bearing a remarkable array 



21 

of scripture names, came under the cognizance of the 
civil courts and judgment was pronounced against 
them. From the church record, and from a curious 
old paper which has come into my hands through one 
of the families of the parish, but which had never 
been understood until the correspondence between it 
and the church record was discovered, it appears that 
Enos and Benjamin and John and Samuel and Noah 
and the two Davids had been guilty of making night 
hideous "by ringing bells and blowing horns on the 
highway." The neighborhood took offense at it. It 
is possible there was some political bearing to their 
action, though it may have been only one of those 
frolics which were liable to be treated as breaches of 
the peace. They were convicted in court, and the 
church record quaintly says, that Enos and Noah and 
one of the Davids, before the church, acknowledged 
that said actions were neither justifiable nor com- 
mendable, and they were really sorry that they had 
any hand in it and promised that they would do so no 
more. The church took them back, but Benjamin, 
Samuel, and the other David, justified their conduct, 
and their case was sent up to the association, from 
which august body it came back with advice to the 
church to receive them if they would " promise to 
behave orderly for the time to come," otherwise to 
hold them under suspension. The church followed 
the advice, but I have not yet learned whether the 
three obstinate ones ever gave in. 

How hard it was for the pastor to adjust all the 
affairs of the young but growing church, appears 
from the course of some of the people in connection 



22 

with the erection of a new meeting-house. It took 
five years to discuss the location of that building. 
Mr. Hall was evidently a man of affairs, and was the 
owner of a very considerable property. He lived on 
the spot where his direct descendant, Mr. Avery 
Hall, now lives, in a house of which the present one 
is said to be as nearly as possible a copy. He built 
also, for his son, the large house over the way from 
us, on the corner of Broad and Main streets, long 
used for a hotel ; and he gave the acre of ground on 
which we stand for the erection of the new church. 
But there was jealousy of the pastor's influence. 
Some evidently thought it would not do to build on 
ground owned by the minister. Some advantage 
might accrue to him. The acceiDtance of the gift 
might bring him some larger claim upon the people, 
and increase his power. A party sprang up in oppo- 
sition, but the day was again carried against the 
opposition. Thus pestered and troubled, you will not 
wonder that the great heart of Theophilus Hall grew 
weary, and that, in an ordination sermon preached at 
Berwick, (Matthew Merriam's ordination, Sept. 25, 
1765,) only less than two years before he died, he 
should have poured out his soul in words like these, 
on the trials and the joys of a pastor's life: "With 
respect to the people, innumerable difficulties arise 
from this matter ; there is so much weakness and 
ignorance, so much pride and self-conceit among 
them, so many different tastes and opinions, and 
their state and circumstances so very various, that it 
is almost impossible rightly to divide the word of 
truth among them. If you conform to one, you may 



23 

be sure you will offend another ; and if you preach 

the truth, it may be you will displease them all 

Some are too knowing to be taught, others too proud 
to T^e reproved, and how^ many are there disposed to 
find fault? They look upon their ministers with a 
jealous eye, and are apt to think the least failing in 
them an unpardonable crime. 

" How often is this the case, that one or the other 
of these dilemmas or the like are retorted upon us 
by the people ? If we take no care of our secular 
interest, we are idle and indolent men. If we preach 
anything new to them, 'it is heresy;' but if we don't, 
then we are charged with old sermons. If we are 
familiar with our people, they will despise us ; but if 
we keep them at a proper distance, then we lord it 
over God's heritage. 'John came neither eating nor 
drinking, and they say he hath a devil. The Son of 
Man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold 
a man gluttonous and a wine bibber, a friend of 
publicans and sinners.' " 

Alas ! dear friends, that thirty odd years with a 
single people should have forced such a passage 
from such a man. And yet the dear little church 
had stood by him until it had grown with him into 
strength. From a membership of fifty it had risen 
to be a strong church.* From the little meeting- 
house on the hill the congregation had removed to a 
new and substantial house in the future center of the 
growing population. 

The hard struggle of the day of small things was 



* In 1770 the membership was 185 and the familes in the parish 123. 



24 

over. The voice which for thirty-seven years had 
sounded a ringing note of Hberty, and had fearlessly 
proclaimed the need among men of a divine life, is at 
last hushed. The first pastor is dead. In the early 
spring of 1767, they bore him through the scenes of 
his toil, over the little brook, up the steep hill-side, 
past the site of the little church, to the burying- 
ground on yonder southern slope. There they laid 
him down and covered him with the sod, and on the 
red sandstone slab over his grave they wrote these 
words : 

IN MEMORY 

OF 

THEOPHILUS HALL, 

Pastor of the church, who, having for thirty-seven 

years discharged the duties of his function with 

distinguished fidelity and accomplished 

Christian life, the uniform disciple 

of Jesus Christ, 

Deceased March 230, 1767, in the sixtieth year 

OF HIS age. 

" They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of 
the firmament." 

We need no account of that funeral. Over that 
grave all contention was hushed. In it all bitterness 
was buried. Love wove around it a garland of 
memories brought from all their rural homes, and the 
benediction of God's peace was upon it. For more 
than a hundred years the grass has freshened and 



25 

faded over it ; for more than a hundred years the 
winter wind has swept it and the summer rains 
have moistened it. To-day the slab which commem- 
orates that Hfe of our early history lies neglected 
and broken on the ground, desecrated by the sport 
of heedless passers-by. But the lives that were 
made better by that life, the tears that were dried, 
and the mourning hearts that were comforted, and 
the wayward ones that were saved by it, are praising 
it still and will praise it for ever. How mightily that 
life and that vigorous thought have influenced the 
growing future of this place, even down to the pres- 
ent generation, we know not. But I am proud, dear 
friends, to have been instrumental, this day, in bring- 
ing the memory of it out of the forgetfulness of the 
past and re-consecrating it in the heart of this gene- 
tion. 



SECOND CENTENNIAL SERMON 

PREACHED ON THE 

ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY-SEVENTH ANNIVERSARY 

OF THE ORGANIZATION OF THE 

Congregational Church 

IN MERIDEN, 
Sunday, October 22 d, 1876. 



Tkxt— Rev. 3: 8. — "Behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man 

can shut it." 



SERMON. 



Onck more, mv friends, let us li y to get a i)icture 
of the popular life to which our church, by God's help, 
about the year 1770, was still supplying moral and 
si)iritual power. The church is nothing without the 
people. The kingdom of heaven comes to society 
busied with schemes of national development and of 
political government. On this troubled sea of human 
interests, with its clashing waves, the church of God 
may seem only a driven boat, w^ith quivering mast and 
storm-reefed sail, tossed at the mercy of innumerable 
waves ; but through the storm and under the cloud 
she is God's pilot-boat to individuals and nations. 

Over what kind of seas is our little church, at the 
time of the death of its first pastor, helping to guide 
the people .'' There have been great changes since 
that 22d of October, of the year 1729, when, on a day 
set apart for fasting and prayer, your fathers entered 
into the covenant of a Christian church. Thirty- 
eight years have passed, during which the nation and 
the parish with it have been growing rapidly in num- 
bers and in material wealth. The last two or three 
years of the life of Hall had also been spent among 
scenes of political excitement, under which the nerve 
of the nation first quivered and then strung itself for 
battle. The lenient policy of King George the Second 



30 

had been succeeded by the oppressive policy of the 
mad King George the Third. Taxation by sea was 
to be followed by taxation on American soil, which 
our fathers declared subversive of American liberties. 
It is an old story, but these Centennial sermons would 
be tame without it. It was God's narrow way to the 
open door. On the 27th of February, 1765, British 
legislation for the Colonies brought the stamp act 
through the House of Commons. On the eighth of 
March following, the House of Lords agreed to it 
without " amendment, debate, protest, division, or 
single dissentient vote," and George the Third signed 
it on the 2 2d day of March, just two years and one 
day before the death of that '' zealous advocate for 
civil and religious liberty," Meriden's first pastor ; 
who, therefore, lived long enough to witness the recoil 
of a stunned nation at the reception of the news of 
that act, and to see the rebound as the nation sprang 
to the work of resistance. He heard often, no doubt, 
the cry of " Liberty, Property, and No stamps," which 
rang on the streets even in the mouths of children. 
He was a sharer in the excitement here in Connecticut, 
when those five hundred farmers and freeholders, 
mounted on horseback, armed with freshly peeled 
white cudgels, forced the stamp officer, Ingersoll, on 
the broad ^Wethersfield street, to resign his office, 
throw up his hat, and three times shout, " Liberty 
and Property." 

What part our Meriden fathers took in all this, we 
have little left on record to tell us ; but we know that 
the great tide wave did not pass over these hills and 
through these valleys without gathering force as it 



31 

swept by our ancestral homes, and the doors of the 
new church on Meriden green. We know tliat wlien, 
in January, i 'j66, tlie Sons of Liberty, of New York, 
sent out their proclamation declaring that they would 
go to the last extremity, and venture their lives and 
fortunes, effectually to prevent the stamp act, their 
resolution was speedily brought to Connecticut, and 
the town of Wallingford, of which this Meriden parish 
then formed a part, in a meeting in which, no doubt, 
the Meriden pastor and people participated, voted a 
fine of twenty shillings on any inhabitant "that should 
use or improve any stamped velum or paper ;" and the 
organization of Sons of Liberty formed in the town of 
Wallingford and Meriden declared, with their breth- 
ren of New York, that they were prepared " to oppose 
the unconstitutional stamp act, to the last extremity, 
even to take the field." It would be a precious memo- 
rial of those brave spirits who nursed the fire which, 
ten years later, flamed out in the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, if I were able here to produce some of 
the words which fell from the pulpit on the Sundays 
which followed those stirring weeks down to the time 
when Parliament, one year before Mr. Hall's death, 
repealed that act. He who could speak so eloquently 
and boldly must have spoken most eloquently and 
boldly in those last days, from which he was so soon to 
enter into rest But I find no word of it all. In the 
lull which followed the intense excitement of that first 
great struggle of the people, he passed away, and left 
the church to plunge into a contest with the ecclesi- 
astical powers around it, wherein our fathers showed 



32 

that ecclesiastical freedom was not less precious to 
them than civil liberty. 

That controversy over the installation of the Rev. 
John Hubbard, the second pastor of this church, has 
gone into history, along with the celebrated contro- 
versy in Wallingford over the ordination of Dr. Dana. 
It was more than a controversy between a majority 
and a minority in a country church. It was a con- 
test between the rights of the local church under the 
congregational system, and associations and consocia- 
tions ruling over the churches with authority. It was 
a continuation of the struggle, in these Connecticut 
churches, between Congregationalism pure and sim- 
ple and a Presbyterianized Congregationalism set 
forth by the Saybrook Platform (in the year 1708,) 
and established by act of the General Assembly of 
these Connecticut colonies as the basis of a quasi 
State church. The roots of the Hubbard controversy 
strike deep into religious liberty. Things were ripe 
here, as you know from my first discourse, for the 
breaking out of an already disaffected party, when, in 
the October* following the death of Theophilus Hall, 
the church invited John Hubbard, of New Haven, 
then about forty years of age, to preach for four weeks 
on probation. The appearance of that preacher on 
the scene was the signal for action. Mr. Hubbard 
was reputed, as reputation then went, to be unsound. 
He could not have preached more than one Sunday, 
whenf forty-seven members of the society petitioned 
their fellow-members to advise with either association 

* October 5th, 1767. T October 12th, 1767. 



33 

of New Haven County, as was then the custom, on 
the subject of a candidate for the pastoral office. But 
the church was shy of associational interference. It 
meant to choose its own pastor. 

On the 2d of November, having probably heard 
the eight probationary sermons, it voted, forty-two 
to twenty-one, in favor of inviting Mr. Hubbard "to 
the pastoral office." The minority appealed to the 
association. The association summoned the accused 
pastor-elect before it ; the pastor-elect denied the 
jurisdiction of that ecclesiastical court, and the asso- 
ciation replied by taking away his license. The con- 
sociation with its higher authority confirmed this act. 
So John Hubbard preached without a license. 

The church entered on its record a declaration 
made* "by a full vote," the preamble of which throws 
light on the state of things among the churches at 
that time. " Whereas," it says, " there has much 
controversy and dispute existed in this Colony of 
late concerning ecclesiastical discipline, and particu- 
larly concerning the authority of councils and the 
rights of particular churches, we think it expedient to 
declare explicitly our purpose to * stand fast in the 
liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free.' " " We 
understand," the declaration goes on to say, " that no 
consociation has right, by the constitution, to take 
cognizance of or intermeddle with any of the affairs 
or doings of any particular church upon the desire or 
application of private members of said church, unless 
said church first consented thereto or had excom- 

*November 20th, 1767. 



34 

municated said private members We declare 

ourselves to be a CongregatioTial church, and we 
understand the constitution as allowing and securing 
to us the full enjoyment of the rights of Congrega- 
tional churches, especially the right of exercising 
discipline by ourselves and choosing our own pastor." 

People had got into a troublesome way of talking 
about rights in those days, of British navigation laws 
and stamp acts. The Wallingford matter, too, had 
put these men on their guard. They held to the 
value of Congregationalism as a system of church 
liberty. Their dead pastor had taught them that. 
They believed in the rule of majorities ; and they 
had heard in the last thirty-seven years too free a 
discussion of Christian doctrine to be alarmed by the 
cry of heresy. That declaration, flung out on the 
20th of November, was a warning to the consocia- 
tion, which was already on the move. 

On the 29th of December, the month following 
that declaration, the parish of Meriden was the scene 
of lively discussion in every family, at the early morn- 
ing meal, and by every fireside in the evening. On 
that day a council of churches met at the call of the 
majority to ordain John Hubbard ; and, on the same 
day, the Consociation of New Haven County met 
also, here in Meriden, to prevent the ordination. 
For four days these two ecclesiastical bodies held 
sessions, discussed, resolved, remonstrated, and grew 
warm over against each other, until at last the council 
which the majority had called "considered the broken 
state of the society," and were of opinion it was not 
best to proceed to ordination. But the trouble was 
not over. 



35 

In the following March,* in a protest which 
sounds very much like 1776, our church re-asserted 
its privileges. That document, which sets forth its 
grievances and declares its withdrawal from the con- 
sociation, is worthy of a full reading here were there 
time for it. It begins by pointing to the relation of 
this trouble to that in Wallingford ; refers to the in- 
terference of the consociation at the time when the 
council met in Meriden ; declares it does not know 
what is further intended, but supposes that unless the 
church desist from its choice of a pastor, it is to be 
treated as the Wallingford church was — the minority 
to be declared the church, and they themselves scat- 
tered "as the ashes of the martyrs in the air, and their 
bones at the grave's mouth." They declare that they 
see no safety but in flight. They therefore renounce 
the consociation, and assert that they will pay no re- 
gard to its authority. Then within a weekf they offer 
to the minority to give up their preference for Mr. 
Hubbard, " though his preaching and labors are very 
agreeable to us," provided the opposers of Mr. Hub- 
bard's settlement "join with the major part of this 
church in asserting and maintaining that Christian 
liberty which we so highly esteem, .... renounce 
the consociation .... until said consociation gives 
up their unwarrantable claims." The entry of the 
scribe, Benjamin Rice, at the close of this proposition 
shows how things were going : ** The above proposal 
was universally assented to by the major part and it 
was wholly rejected by the minor with contempt." 

*March 22d, 1768. t March 28th. 



36 

The minority persevered and carried the case before 
the Colonial Assembly.* The majority in its turn 
called a second council having two ministers from this 
Colony of Connecticut, one of whom was the Rev. 
James Dana, (who was also scribe of the council,) and 
four from outside the colony. Of these, the Rev. Dr. 
Ezra Styles, of Newport, afterwards President of Yale 
College, was brother-in-law of Mr. Hubbard. The 
others were the Rev. Joseph Lothrop, of Springfield, 
Rev. Robert Buck, also of Springfield, and the Rev. 
John Ballentine. This council met on the 20th day 
of that always lovely month of June {1769). Before 
it appeared a committee of the association on behalf 
of the minority, and before it also appeared the minor- 
ity itself, with a protest. The discussion continued 
with protest, propositions, and rejections, until the 
majority of the church — declaring that they do not 
believe the difficulties can ever be adjusted, and that 
they have exhausted all expedients — close with an ex- 
pressed conviction that if, as had been proposed, a 
mutual council agreed on by the parties in the church 
should meet and advise Mr. Hubbard not to settle, 
even that would not bring peace ; but on the con- 
trary, " we never shall be as well united as now, but 
fear our unhappy dispute will terminate in the great 
interest of the Church of England." How far that 
last dark hint about the formation of an Episcopal 
Church in the parish of Meriden may have influenced 
the minds of the reverend ministers on that council, 
we can only guess. But the council was convinced, 

*May, 1768. 



37 

and on the 22d of June, granted the petition of the 
church, and ordained the pastor of its choice. Both 
sides in the controversy had shown the persevering 
spirit of the times. 

What the views of Mr. Hubbard were, I have not 
as yet been able to ascertain ; * but from such hints as 
I am able to gather, nothing in his theology would 
render him objectionable to any church of ordinary 
intelligence at the present day. The contest was due 
to the progress of thought in a time when men's 
minds were thoroughly roused — when there was a 
great tendency to free discussions, and when with the 
chafing at political bondage there came a new and 
fresh assertion of the liberty of the old Congregational 
way against the restraints of a half way Presbyterian- 
ism. Such times would necessarily involve conflict. 

The discussion continued in the colony after the 
council had decided the case. A portion of the church 
withdrew and maintained separate worship. But the 
magnetism of men is often mightier than the preju- 
dices of men. The fine qualities of the new pastor 
forced themselves upon the hearts of the opposers ; 
his kindness, his charity, and his courtesy won them 
all back. Animated and interesting as a preacher, 
his freedom of thought possessed a charm for that age 
of liberty, and his "unusually pleasant and benignant 
countenance," remembered still in 1848 by the sur- 
vivors of his ministry, disarmed malice, if malice there 
was, or dissipated innocent but unnecessary fears. 
Moreover, the time when he entered upon his minis- 

* For Mr. Hubbard's Confession of Faith, since discovered, see 
Appendix. 

4 



38 

try was auspicious. It was a time pregnant with that 
future, in which men's thoughts turned from the 
smaller strifes of parishes to the concerns of a nation 
passing through the baptism of blood. The years 
were speeding rapidly on to the revolution, with its 
sacrifices, its homes mourning over the slain, and its 
long watching for the fulfillment of patriotic hopes. 
These years were favorable for such a man to win the 
hearts of the people. 

It is a significant fact which comes to my knowledge 
just at the moment of writing these lines, that per- 
haps the only person living, who was born in Meriden 
during Mr. Hubbard's ministry, an old lady, residing 
near Aurora, Illinois, a hundred years of age this fall, 
very naively said to a great-grandson of our John 
Hubbard, that her father's family found it convenient 
to remove from Meriden while she was very young. 
As she was born in i ']']6, and circumstances point to 
the tory leanings of her father, it will readily be un- 
derstood how convenient it was for the family to take 
its departure. 

Mr. Hubbard lived to see the close of that war and 
to share in the rejoicings over a victorious peace. 
But at about this time he was thrown from his sleigh 
and so severely injured that he ceased preaching. He 
lingered among an affectionate people some three 
years longer, when he died and was buried, under the 
chill winds of a November day, in the new cemetery 
beneath the trees to the south of us, the land of which 
he himself had deeded to the town of Meriden. There, 
at the head of one of the graves, those who revere the 
past may find a quaint old free-stone slab on which 
his people thus delicately commemorated his virtues : 



39 
IN MEMORY 

OF THE 

REV. JOHN HUBBARD, A . M . , 

Pastor of the Church in Meriden, who 

Died Nov. iSth, 1776, JEtat 60. 

He was a rational and serious Christian, exemplar)' 
for gravity, integrity, piety and benevolence. He 
was an able minister of the New Testament and 
beloved by all his flock for his faithfulness 
and apostolic diligence in the work of the 
ministry, and for the prudence, kind- 
ness, and humanity which adorned 
his manners and rendered him a 
most excellent pastor." 

By the side of that weather-worn slab of sand- 
stone stands another, which commemorates his wife, 
Mary, who died March 2, 1806, having that day 
completed her 70th year. Of her the sculptor's 
chisel says : " An early Christian profession was 
adorned by her living to Christ. With a rare tender- 
ness of conscience, she kept in view the glory of God 
in ail the duties of her relations and conditions. Re- 
marking the Providence which numbereth the hairs 
of our heads, she improved by every incident." Then, 
with a touch of sympathy, the chisel tenderly adds : 
" The comforts of vital piety, which she sensibly en- 
joyed, were subject to intervals of extreme mental 
darkness." ** Light is sown for the righteous." 

If I were to search for some words with which to 



40 

close this notice of a charitable life, I could hardly 
find any more worthy of our heeding, as members of 
a Christian church and as neighbors and friends, than 
these, taken from the only sermon of Mr. Hubbard's 
which has come into my hands. It is a pungent but 
kindly one on the sin of backbiting, preached March 
1 2th, 1776, a hundred years ago. After defining that 
vice as consisting " in speaking ill of others, slander- 
ing and reproaching of them in their absence, and 
consequently when they have no opportunity to ex- 
culpate or vindicate themselves," and after saying that 
" Besides the unreasonableness of this practice, it is 
a mean vice, having its special deformity as it betray- 
eth a soul that is either wholly devoid of every prin- 
ciple of ingenuity and friendship, or inattentive to the 
great and sacred law of love and charity," he closes 
by making this application: "The subject remindeth 
us also of the importance of cultivating a spirit of 

universal candor, charity, and love Then shall 

we be disposed to put on, as the elect of God, bowels 
of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind ; then will 
the God of love and peace dwell among us." 

Before the death of John Hubbard, the Rev. John 
Willard had been settled as colleague pastor in June, 
1786. I am able to add almost nothing to what oth- 
ers have written in regard to him and his pastorate. 
His work here fell in that unfortunate period of finan- 
cial depression and moral deterioration which follows 
upon long and exhausting wars.' It is not likely that 
the population increased rapidly. He was an anima- 
ted preacher, of very tall and slender figure, and a 
sermon which has come into my hands, preached in 



41 

a neighboring parish, on the training of children, was 
by request, I beheve, of that parish, put into print. 

On his settlement, the old division in the church 
showed itself afresh, and he seems to have had a 
troubled ministry. Again the doctrinal discussion 
was renewed as under Hubbard. It is a fact, having 
a bearing no doubt on his work, that the First Baptist 
church in Meriden was organized in the midst of that 
controversy, two months after his settlement, and the 
Episcopal church was organized before the close of 
his ministry. It is said that great numbers either 
deserted public worship altogether or transferred 
themselves to other denominations. The old yeast of 
discontent was doing its work. The history of the 
previous twenty years, the progress and diversity of 
opinion in the church, the conflict between the new 
and the old, had made a rendering of old church ties 
inevitable, and these denominations offered the occa- 
sion for a result which was already being precipitated. 
Discouraged by causes which were, no doubt, beyond 
human control, Mr. Willard committed what, I fear, 
was the error of resigning his post, and was dismissed 
in 1802. By that event, for the first time the pastoral 
relation in this church was violently broken, and, 
since that day, no pastor has rounded out the work 
of his whole life among you. One has come back 
to die after an absence of years, and another has 
been brought here and buried ; but pastorates have 
been increasingly brief, and no pastor has died in the 
harness. Has it always been the preacher's fault ? 

I learn* that in the ten years ending in 1795, all of 

* Manuscript sermon ol Mr. Hinsdale. 

4* 



42 

which fell in Mr. Willard's ministry, the number of 
additions to the church were sixty-five or an average 
of six and one-half per year. 

We must not leave the last century, my friends, 
without a glimpse at the state of society in that period 
which we love to think of as the romantic period of 
American history. In the last quarter of the last 
century, the drift of population pointed more and more 
towards the formation of an important center along 
the line of our present Broad street. Here the church 
had been built ; here, across the way, the house which 
afterwards became the half-way tavern for the days 
of stages, had been built ; on the hill, where Edward 
Miller's house now stands, the Rev. John Hubbard 
built and lived in a house which has since been re- 
moved to the east side of South Broad street, and is 
occupied by our friend, Mr. Sanderson. The high- 
way which forms the present street in front of the 
church had been laid out, and farther north, at the 
head of what is now Liberty street, Mr. Willard, the 
third pastor, built what, for the time, was a sufficiently 
stately house, the same square-roofed building, with 
projecting upper story, which has been since removed 
to a point on Broad street, opposite Mr, Bassett's. 
The place of burial, too, had been changed from the 
sunny hill-side to the cemetery just south of us. 
These private houses with the church, ranging along 
the wide but rough highway, already formed a center 
towards which the population drifted, until the open- 
ing of the railroad. 

The spirit of progress and change was working out 



43 

the greater future of Mcriden and the whole land. 
The survivors of those subjects of the British king, 
who first gathered in the church built on this spot, 
had now become free citizens of a free country. The 
colony of Connecticut had become a State. He that 
" openeth and no man shutteth, and shutteth and no 
man openeth," had set before them an open door. 

The people who came into church on those Sun- 
days in the latter portion of the last century, were 
men and women of deep convictions, of heroic cour- 
age, of mighty endurance, and of earnest life. They 
were earnest, but not so grave, I imagine, as some 
of us have pictured them. The stir of those days 
was favorable to vivacity of manners, and the Yankee 
loved a strain of wit then as well as now. In society 
there was a certain courtliness which we have drop- 
ped. The dress was more pretentious, or seems more 
so to us. The short clothes, with long hose, buckles 
at the knees, and buckled shoes, the cocked hats and 
full white' or gray wigs, which were worn in public, 
give an air of stateliness to our fathers, but they did 
not forget to be playful. Their homes were plain but 
cheerful, with the opening fields around them in 
summer and with the blazing wood fires in winter. 
Luxuries had not found their way into domestic life. 
The women did house-work. The oppression of trade 
by England had stimulated home industry. Spin- 
ning-wheels for wool and flax hummed lullabys to 
children in the broad kitchens, and hand-looms clat- 
tered through the winter days as they wove the yarn 
or the thread into homespun. The homes of minis- 
ters were not always sober. Doctor Styles, the same 



44 

that formed one of the council which ordained John 
Hubbard, tells us in his manuscript diary at Yale 
College, of a donation party at his house in Newport, 
where the women had a spinning match, at which 
there were thirty-seven spinning-wheels going at one 
time. 

There was a grand break down of denominational 
lines, at least, that day. Among the spinners were 
two Quakers, six Baptists, and twenty-nine of his own 
society. Besides the spinners were sixteen reelers 
to reel the yarn. Sixty persons dined at the parson- 
age. What a humming and buzzing ! Do you suppose 
those fifty and more women made no music at the 
pastor's house ? The fathers and mothers of 'yS were 
earnest but not over-staid people. They were pro- 
gressive folks. The world moved fast in the last 
quarter of the last century. 

In the houses there were no carpets. Even in 
1802, there was but one in the town. Down to the 
year 1789 there had never been owned here anything 
more nearly approaching a pleasure wagon or travel- 
ing buggy, than the three two-wheeled rude chaises 
without top, which had hitherto constituted the turn- 
out of the town. People — men and women, young 
and old — rode on horseback from house to house. I 
have heard my mother, who was born in 1800, tell of 
the merry times, when young men came to take young- 
ladies to ride behind them on pillions, and dashed 
away two upon a horse over Torringford hills. Women, 
as well as men, were good riders in those days. In 
a country where there were only rough roads, every 
body learned to mount a horse. 



45 

Mr. Perkins tells us that down to the year 1802, 
there was not here a single road that was rounded up as 
we make roads now. When the Hartford and New 
Haven Turnpike through the center of the town was 
completed, about the year 1800, it was considered a 
" vast, wonderful, and curious work." People came to 
see it, just as they afterwards flocked to see the first 
railroad. The completion of such roads was a neces- 
sary preliminary to those splendid stage lines which, 
down to 1830 or '40, furnished the swiftest mode of 
communication, with their relays, and their proud 
drivers on rattling coaches, shaking the reins over 
four running horses, ringing out the signal note 
of the French horn, then seizing the long whip and 
sending the cracking lash around the ears of the 
leaders, as coach, passengers, baggage, and mail rolled 
down past the village houses towards the half-way 
house on the corner. 

The morals of the last portion of the last century 
in this town of Meriden, may be gathered from the 
style of church discipline and from the well-known 
drinking habits of society. The population of Meri- 
den in 1790 is said not to have been more than about 
nine hundred, and for that population, and down to 
18 1 2, there were not less than five and perhaps eight 
taverns, all keeping liquors. But it must be remem- 
bered that the traveling habits of the public, in a 
time when journeys were made on liorseback, and 
later in wagons and stages, made taverns necessary in 
a place so favorably situated as Meriden was for a 
resting point on the great thoroughfare from Spring- 
field and Hartford through New Haven to New York. 



46 

But the old tavern with its bar, its great room for 
strangers lounging before the open fire, its numbers 
of all classes brought together for a night away from 
home, with its practice of social drinking which then 
pervaded society, with its story-telling, and its village 
lounging — that being the place to which people natu- 
rally resorted to hear the news from strangers, and 
often the place for distribution of the mails — the old 
New England tavern of the last century and the 
early part of this was not a promoter of what we 
should term good morals. 

Slavery existed in a mild form among our fathers 
of the last century. In the year 1790, Connecticut 
had two thousand seven hundred and fifty-nine slaves ; 
and even down to the year 1 840, in this State the pro- 
cess of gradual emancipation which had been adopted 
here had still left us seventeen slaves, Mr. Perkins esti- 
mates that in 1770, there were in the whole town of 
Wallingford and Meriden fifty-six slaves — an estimate 
based upon the records of deaths for thirty-eight years. 
The hardships of slavery, bitter enough in any case, 
were mitigated here in New England by the fact that 
the slaves were household servants and farm hands, 
whose masters and mistresses did not themselves dis- 
dain the severest toils, so that the servant was brought 
into closer contact with the master. 

I am able to present you here to-day with a docu- 
ment which will make you realize the immense differ- 
ence between the last century and this century in 
respect to the sacredness of human personality. It 
is the original document of sale of a negro girl in this 
town in the year 1750. The paper was found in an 



47 

old drawer of the Royce family, and is kindly furnished 
me by Mrs. Robert Hull. 

"Know all men l)y these presents that I Joseph Shailer of 
haddam in the County of Hartford in the Colony of Connect- 
icut in new england do acknowledg my self in plain and open 
market for and in consideration of the some of one hundred 
and sixty pounds to have sold and set over unto dec Benjamin 
Roys of Walingford in New Haven County one nes^ro girl 
called violet aged about three years to be the sd Benjamin 
Koyses slave and servant and to his heirs and asigns during 
the full term of her natural life avouching my self to be the 
proper and sole owner of the sd negro girl and have a Right to 
dispose of the sd negro girl during the term of her natural life 
further I do here by Bind my self and Heirs to defend and 
warant the sd negro girl violet to the sd Roys his heirs and 
asigns against the lawfull claims of all persons what soever as 
witness here of I hereunto have set my hand and seal this 20th 
of April AD 1750 

Joseph Shailer 

Neliemiali Pratt 

Daniel Hoult" 

It seems that deacons of chinches, and ministers as 
well, did p.ot esteem it a violation of Christian prin- 
ciple to own and buy and sell negro girls — "violets" — 
or negro boys and men. 

Out of that century many habits of society have 
been prolonged into the present one, and it has been the 
task of the Christian church here and elsewhere to 
prosecute the work of eradicating practices which the 
pure gospel of Jesus Christ does not fail in the end 
to expose and condemn. 

As its leader in the moral and spiritual work of the 
opening century the church (Jan. 3, 1803,) called a 
man of very different type from any who had gone 
before him. Erastus Ripley was the fourth pastor of 



48 

the church.* I do not learn that there was any 
division over his call to the ministerial office here. 
There seems to have been no question as to his 
soundness. He was a thoroughly sincere and good 
man, bold in denouncing sin, not sparing to speak 
according to his conviction of duty, even at a funeral. 
He dealt stout blows and frequent blows with the 
doctrine of election and future punishment. He was 
a strong writer but a heavy speaker ; — a tall, broad- 
shouldered, heavy man who did not often smile. In 
the course of his ministry the congregation rapidly 
diminished. Great numbers joined themselves to 
other denominations, and at one time it seemed as 
if the church would become quite extinct. During 
eleven years he labored under great discouragements. 
For seventy-four years, or since the days of White- 
field, it is not known that there had been a general 
revival of religion. 

Out of a sermon celebrating the one hundredth 
anniversary of the church, preached by Mr. Hinsdale, 
Mr. Ripley's immediate successor, January 3, 1830, I 
learn that the pastor of the church, after a period of 
great mental depression, was seized with a strong 
conviction that there was to be a revival. The revival 
came and came in power. At first church prayer- 
meetings were held consisting of a very few persons, 
but " their numbers were soon greatly increased." 
Sinners in different parts of the town were at length 
aroused and crowded to the place of prayer. The 
Spirit of God moved over the place bringing one of 



*Ordainecl in the following February over the church, after a church 
fast. 



49 

those mighty seasons which some of you remember 
so well, — in which stillness and thoiightfulness per- 
vade places of business and homes ; the Word of 
God comes to hearts with convincing force ; men 
inquire after the way of salvation ; sinners are con- 
verted and Christians are lifted into a higher life. 
Mr. Hinsdale testifies that the blessed effects of this 
season were still visible when he spoke. Such a 
work, after so long a period as that intervening since 
Whitefield's time, was a great and glorious experience, 
and was no doubt sufficient mightily to affect the 
currents of life throughout the town. It was thought 
by some that one hundred were converted in this 
revival. The record shows sixty-five additions to the 
church in the year 1815, no doubt in large part the 
fruits of this work. But there was a reaction. In 
1 816 there are but nine persons entered on the record 
as new members ; in 181 7, none. 

Mr. Ripley was dismissed from the pastoral charge 
in February, 1822. It is an item of interest that the 
salary at this period was only ^400. Mr. Ripley's 
nature seems to have been well adapted to the strong- 
er and severer work of the ministry, but he lacked 
social qualities. Children were afraid of him. I 
trust it will be deemed at this distant day no lack of 
delicacy in me to say so. It is the testimony of those 
who were children when he was pastor that in the 
homes and in the schools children all feared him. It 
is said that our revered brother, now in heaven, Levi 
Yale, could not refrain from telling, with a hearty 
laugh, how one of the little girls in a district school, 
to whom the pastor was talking about dying, turned 

5 



50 

to him with a look of pitiful pleadino^ and said : 
*' Please, Mr. God, let me live a little longer."* One 
of the older members of this church, whom we know 
only to love, will forgive me if I tell you a story. 
She avers that Mr. Ripley made her tell a lie. Down 
in the old district school-house he was passing, as he 
was wont to do, along the benches talking with the 
little folks, when he came to Emeline. '' Well, 
Emeline, I hope you say your prayers every night." 
Emeline was in the habit of saying her prayers, but 
her conscience told her very plainly that she did not 
say them every night. She was too frightened to 
tell the truth ; so she whispered out, ** Yes, sir." " I 
hope you tell the truth, Emeline," said the solemn 
preacher; "you know it would be an awful thing lo 
tell a lie. You must not say you pray every night 
unless you do. But I hope you do, don't you ? " 
Says Emeline, " Yes, sir." It was awful to tell a 
lie, but to her child-mind it was more awful still to 
tell the truth to a minister who stood to her in the 
place of God, with power to punish all little children 
that ever forgot to say their prayers. But this pastor, 
whom the children did not love, was called to a good 

* It was not so very uncommon for children of those da3^s to think 
the minister was God. Nor was it always a proof of very great sanc- 
timoniousness in the pastor. My mother, who sat under that remark- 
able and so-called eccentric preacher familiarly known as Parson Mills 
of Torringford, declares that, as she used to look at him in the dignity 
of the pulpit (for he was a man of great dignity, though he was often 
amusing), she believed him to be God. Our venerable brother, pas- 
tor Arms, of Norwich, tells me the same thing has happened to him. 
Those who know his benignant dignity, without reserve, will not 
attribute it to any severity of manner. 



work. One such revival experience as that of 1814 
was worth all it cost him. He was afterwards settled 
in the parish of Goshen, in the town of Lebanon, 
where his power as a revival preacher was also appar- 
ent and bore blessed fruit. He afterwards returned 
to this place and died here November 16, 1843, ^^ the 
ripe age of seventy-three years. 

In the fall of that year 1822, in which Mr. Ripley 
was dismissed, and in the month of November, the 
Rev. Charles J. Hinsdale was settled over a church 
in which the revival memories of six years ago were 
still fresh, and in which they were to be repeated 
before his ministry should close. The church had 
indeed, in common with many in New England, at 
this time entered upon a revival period, marked at 
intervals by great outpourings of God's Spirit. Such 
seasons came under nearly all the succeeding pastors 
and preachers down at least to the year 1848, and 
have been renewed at intervals since. Mr. Hinsdale 
will be remembered by many of those present here 
as a man of engaging manners, thoroughly social, in 
which, as well as in an animated pulpit style, his effi- 
cacy as a pastor largely lay. He says of himself in his 
closing sermon at Blanford, that the great fundamen- 
tal doctrines of the gospel formed the staple of his 
preaching. His pastorate was remarkably success- 
ful ; the church and congregation increased ; and by 
his business management, so far as that belongs to a 
pastor, he doubtless helped much to secure the out- 
ward prosperity of the church and society. It was 
during his ministry that, in the year 183 1, this house 
of worship in its original form was erected, after the 



52 

old one, built in 1755 just in front of this, having 
stood for seventy-six years and witnessed the growth 
of a prosperous community, had become unequal to 
the demands of the times. 

That old church of Revolutionary days, how pre- 
cious its memories had become ! At first, and until 
1803, without a steeple, then, for the first time of all 
churches here, it sent the peal of a bell over these 
Meriden hills — calling to Sabbath worship and town 
meetings ; tolling the ages of the dead and the 
solemn march of funeral trains ; and ringing, as was 
often the New England custom, for the farmers' 
nooning and the evening covering of fire at nine 
o'clock. 

It was built with great cost, sixty by fifty feet, with 
its high pulpit, of course, and its high single gallery ; 
its floor occupied by great square boxes, or pews, as 
they were then called, which were meant for times 
when men had families to fill big pews and gloried in 
having them. Around the front row of the gallery, 
all the way around, sat the great choir, which had 
learned to sing at the winter evening singing-school, 
and which was large enough when it rose to embrace 
in its circle the whole congregation. 

Such was the old church, in which Mr. Hinsdale 
preached his last sermon December 5, 1830, the 
manuscript of which lies before me as I write. I 
cannot more fitly close this notice of him and his 
ministry than by quoting from that sermon the fol- 
lowing eloquent words, "Seventy-five years ago," 
said the preacher, " as at this present time, this house 
was filled with venerable age, vigorous manhood, 



53 

ardent youth, and restless cliildhood. Where are 
they ? Scarce one left to tell the tale. Since that 
period two generations have gone to join the congre- 
gation of the dead What tender ties have been 

severed ! what fond expectations laid prostrate in the 
dust ! . . . . W^hat keen ^remembrance flits across the 
soul as we people again this congregation with the 
departed ! Does there not seem to come a voice 
from these crumbling walls, ' For what is your life ? 
It is even a vapor that appeareth for a little time, 
then vanisheth away.' " 

The new house was finished, and the dedication 
sermon was preached June i6, 1831. You remem- 
ber it well, as it stood in its original form till the year 
1862, a period of thirty-one years. To that house, 
which cost about seven thousand dollars, it has in- 
terested me, and will interest you, to have discovered 
the original list of subscribers, and to see from it in 
what sums the money was raised, and to recall at the 
same moment some of the leading men in the place. 

Two years and a half Mr. Hinsdale preached in 
the new church when he closed his useful ministry of 
eleven years;* and in the following winter of 1833-4 
the glory of the Lord filled the house in a revival 
during the temporary preaching of the Rev. William 
McLean, from which it is thought some seventy souls 
dated their conversion. The church was now with- 
out a settled pastor for some three years, until the 
Rev. Arthur Granger accepted the position and was 
installed in March, 1836. His brief ministry, which 

*Mr. Hinsdale died at Klanford, Mass. He was killed instantly, 
beins^ thrown from his carriage, October 17, 1871, aged 76 years. 

5* 



54 

began with a revival, closed July, 1838, after a period 
of two years and four months. That Granger pastor- 
ate is one of intense interest. 

The years from 1837 to 1841, when Mr. Van Buren 
was president, Vv/^ere years in which the anti- slavery 
excitement reached some of its most disgraceful fea- 
tures. It was the time when the term, abolitionist, 
was a reproach, and when mob law and violence, burn- 
ing of buildings, and dragging men through streets 
with ropes, as in the case of Garrison in Boston, and 
even killing, were made arguments to answer the 
logic of reason and right. Communities were divided, 
many good men were conservative. Party politics 
and ambition intensified, as ever, the violence of the 
contest. Here in Meriden, such men as Levi Yale, 
Fenner Bush, and Julius Pratt, felt that more ought 
to be done in agitation of the great question of the 
day. They procured the use of the basement of this 
church for a public lecture by the Rev. Mr. Ludlow, 
of New Haven, whose benevolent face, looking out 
from that picture on the table, will command your 
respect and even love. The lecture had been an- 
nounced from the pulpit, and the hour drew near 
when it was to be determined whether, under the 
patronage of some of the most honored men of the 
town, there could be free speech in Meriden. The 
excitement was intense, the occasion was important, 
and the aspect of affairs dangerous. A company of 
perhaps a hundred and fifty were gathered in that 
lower room, which then occupied part of the space of 
the present lecture-room. The speaker had opened 
his address, when, outside, violent demonstrations 



55 

begun. The door was locked inside and barricaded. 
The mob gathered around it and banged it with a 
battering-ram from a neighboring wood-pile. The 
door was strong, but there was just cause of alarm 
to the breathless company inside, who could never 
know, in those days, to what desperate violence a 
wild and passionate mob from a neighboring tavern 
might carry measures against a defenceless company 
of men and women. The door was opened by those 
inside, when the company were assaulted with eggs, 
the common missile of mobs in those days. 

The meeting was broken up. Violence was offered 
and some blows dealt. Those who tried to escape 
were pelted with stones and eggs, till, as Mr. Ludlow 
used to declare, he himself " looked like a big pump- 
kin pie." But noble men like Bush, and Yale, and 
Pratt, stood by him as a body-guard, walked in the 
face of the mob and its howling threats and its flying 
missiles, into the street, some of them escorting him 
down to the house where Mr. Granger then lived, and 
which stands next north of the house of Mr. F. T. 
Ives on Broad street. No one was seriously injured. 
The coolness of the men protected them. One gen- 
tleman and his wife from Berlin were severely treated. 
Blows were struck, — one knife is said to have been 
drawn in the confusion. The rioters wei*e successful ; 
mob law had asserted itself. The excitement involved 
the whole community, and particularly this chuixh, 
around whose doors the scenes had been enacted, and 
whose members were divided in their views of ex- 
pediency on the main question and perhaps even at 
that time in their sympathies. Arthur Granger did 



56 

not like excitement, he had hitherto kept quiet. Now 
he spoke for free speech as against the hand of vio- 
lence. Tlie opposition turned itself against him, and 
a mob, born of hell, resulted in the dismissal of a 
pastor of the Congregational church in Meriden. 
Mr. Granger withdrew. He went to Middletown, 
where he was soon settled, and thence to Providence, 
R. I., where he also became pastor of a church, in 
which office he died after a very short period of 
service. 

Mr. Granger was a man of very agreeable personal 
appearance, stout, with a full but intellectual face, 
and, if we may judge from the positions to which he 
was soon called, a man of more than usual pulpit 
power. He was cautious and averse to disputes. To 
this aversion, one, who seems to have known him 
intimately, ascribes the readiness with which he left 
a pastorate which offered at that time little that could 
be attractive to any but a man of strong nerve and 
firm will. 

For three years the ghurch was without a pastor, 
when it secured, in May, 1841, the services of a man 
whom no mobs could control and no opposition could 
silence. George W. Perkins was the last of that line 
of pastors who, from the time of Theophilus Hall, 
for a period of nearly one hundred and twenty years, 
presided over an undivided church. He was so well 
known to many of you that what I say of him here 
will seem tame to be said, except to the younger 
portion of the audience, who never saw him. He 
was a man of remarkable gifts. Of scholarly attain- 
ments, he took pride in giving a character of literary 



57 

excellence to his productions ; of a pleasant counte- 
nance and a genial temper, he knew how to win men ; 
possessed of strong pulpit power, he commanded the 
respect of his listeners ; bold of speech, he did not 
hesitate to emphasize his sentiments ; chastened by 
affliction, he knew the worth of the gospel of Jesus 
Christ to the needs of human hearts. It was his 
strong will and his persuasive power, born of personal 
magnetism, that held the elements of the church in 
union through several years of violent moral and 
political agitations. He was known throughout the 
State as a strong opponent of slavery. It is said of 
him by his biographer that he was, on that account, 
one of the most unpopular men in Connecticut ; but 
he was a man in whom there was neither sham nor 
cant, — one of Theophilus Hall's downright honest 
men, — liberal in his theology and free in his speech, 
whom no threats nor sneers nor coaxing could silence. 
His fellow-ministers were tired of hearing him on the 
old theme of slavery. Yet they respected his ability, 
and invited him to preach the Co/icio ad dentin at one 
of the commencements of Yale College, on the sub- 
ject of sanctification, into which it was presumed no 
plea for the slave could be brought. But they had 
chosen just the right theme for the man. George 
Perkins rose in his place to speak. " Brethren," said 
he to the astonished listeners, " the greatest obstacle 
to sanctification in the church of America is slavery." 
The church prospered under his ministry, and he 
enjoyed his life in Meriden, though he was sometimes 
obliged to confess that a whole year had been spent 
without a single apparent conversion. It was under 



58 

his ministry that the church at length divided. Of 
that step the causes lay deeper than human design. 
The drift of population towards the railroad, the in- 
terests of- property-holders, the apparent inclination 
of the pastor, acting according to an honest judgment 
between the conflicting claims of his friends, all re- 
sulted in a final decision, — the temporary excitement 
of which has long since died away, — to erect a new 
church in West Meriden. The records show at this 
distant day to the careful reader a due degree of the 
spice of controversy and of conflicting wishes, but 
on the whole the division seems to have been wisely 
effected. The larger portion of the church went with 
the pastor, taking, I believe, one-half the property, 
the records of the church, and the fair legal title* to 
be called, as they have called themselves. The First 
Congregational Church ; while they left to the old 
spot a band of noble men and women who would not 
desert it ; leaving to that band those memories which 

* One, whom I have reason to regard as an impartial judge upon 
this point, has informed me since the above was written, that this 
statement is incorrect. The gentleman, who is in no way connected 
with Center church, states that, as the law regula'ing such matters 
then stood, the legal title to the name was never gained by the majority 
who went away, but was assumed by the weight of influence. The 
circumstances were peculiar. A majority left the old church and the 
minority remained. The writer thinks that any one who is in the 
habit of attending councils, will readily see at ihis distant day how 
much better it would have been if those who went away had agreed 
with those who remained upon a compromise, by which neither party 
should claim to be the First, and each had adopted some local name, 
which would not have perpetuated a vexed question. If such an 
arrangement could be made when the other church goes into its new 
and elegant place of worship, nothing would more effectually bury the 
past and promote Christian harmony. 



59 

we are now reviving, hallowed by the associations of 
a hundred and twenty \ ears ; leaving to it the echo 
of the voices of a whole line of noble pastors, and all 
those precious traditions which, once rooted in the 
soil, can never be torn away and transplanted. Under 
the inspiring shadow of those traditions, over a hun- 
dred members grouped themselves around the altar 
which their fathers had builded. Some of them were 
men of strength, men who had given the weight of 
influential characters to this growing town. They 
belonged to a generation almost the last of whom 
have passed away, mighty men of old. 

The remaining church was fortunate in its first 
pastor after the division. Asahel A. Stevens, now 
of Peoria, Illinois, then a young man, of engaging 
manners and pleasant face, if I may judge from the 
likeness which lies on the table before me, joined in 
pastoral work with Mr. Perkins while the congrega- 
tions remained together, and continued in the vacated 
place after the division. He remained here until 
1854, when, on account of his failing voice, amid the 
regrets of an affectionate people, he was dismissed. 
He was afterwards invited to return, but was com- 
pelled to decline the call. A delightful revival which 
came over the church while he was laboring in com- 
pany with Mr. Perkins, was jealously attributed by 
his friends, and doubtless would have been attributed 
by his associate, largely to his youthful zeal. 

I shall not detain you longer, dear friends, with 
details of this later church history. It is well known 
to most of you. How greatly you have been pros- 
pered above your hopes and faith; with what labors 



6o 

my predecessor, beloved by so many of you, helped 
to build up the church ; and with what sacrifices, in 
the past few years, you have enlarged and beautified 
this house of your fathers, and how steadily the 
church has been and is growing from those days 
when a httle over a hundred of you banded together 
afresh, until now, under God, you are strong in a 
membership of about two hundred and sixty souls, 
all this, with grateful hearts, ascribe to Him who has 
" set before you an open door." 

Once more, dear friends, before we step towards 
the long century which stretches far away beyond 
the mortal reach of any of us, let us turn to greet 
the past : the dear and honored names of Hall, and 
Hubbard, and Willard, and Ripley, and Hinsdale, 
and Perkins, all dead now ; the dear faces of our 
forefathers with their noble deeds ; the dear faces of 
kindred and friends who have gone up on high. In 
their names, too, let us greet the walls under which 
they have gathered before us or with us, and which we 
hallow for their sakes. Once more, with outstretched 
arms, let us greet each other, promising to" put on, as 
the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, 
kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long suffer- 
ing, forbearing one another, forgiving one another;" 
once more let us greet the brethren of the same 
household who have gone out from us ; once more the 
whole church of God around us ; and upon ourselves 
and upon them, with uplifted hands, let us pray: Grace, 
mercy, and peace from God our Father, and Jesus 
Christ our Lord, Amen. 



APPENDIX. 



As the foregoing sermons touch only very briefly upon the 
pastorates which follow that of Mr. Stevens, some of the more 
important features of the later history of the church, down to 
the present time, are presented in this Appendix. 

Immediately after the dismissal of Mr. Stevens, the church, 
October 13, 1854, voted to invite the Rev. A. S. Cheesbrough 
"to supply the pulpit to the 1st January, 1856." Mr. Chees- 
brough acted as pastor of the church during that period. At 
the present time he is preaching in Durham, of this State, 
where, it is reported, a revival work has been recently de- 
veloped. 

On the 30th December, 1856, the church "voted unanimously 
to invite Rev. Asahel A. Stevens to return to us, and again 
become our pastor." This invitation Mr. Stevens, while cher- 
ishing for the church "most affectionate and grateful remem- 
brance," was obliged to refuse. 

The Rev. Lewis C. Lockwood was installed pastor of the 
church June 3, 1857. This pastorate was for some reason un- 
fortunate, and Mr. Lockwood was dismissed February 22, 1858, 
after a period of only eight months. 

At a meeting of the church held on the 25th May, 1858, "it 
was voted unanimously that Rev. O. H. White be invited to 
become the pastor of this church and society." Mr. White 
accepted this invitation so far as to become the acting pastor 
of the church, in which relation he continued, without install- 
ment, down to the year 1862. Mr. White afterwards went to 
New Haven, where he labored with the Howard Avenue church, 
and he is at the present time, or was recently, in England, un- 
der an appointment of the American Missionary Association 
for the Freedmen. 



62 

The Rev. J. J. Woolley was installed pastor of the church 
October 22, 1862, in which office he continued until the 14th 
of August, i87i,at which time, by advice of Council, the pas- 
toral relation was dis'solved. Of him, as the immediate pre- 
decessor of the writer in the pastoral office, it is due him to 
say, that his great frankness of manner, his affection for the 
soldiers in the late war, in which he had acted as chaplain, 
and his general interest in the welfare of Meriden, won to him 
a multitude of friends. His name ought to be permanently 
associated with the granite monument which now stands in 
front of our City Hall to commemorate the soldiers who died 
in the Union cause. Largely to his labors we are indebted for 
that public work. 

The church prospered, particularly in the earlier part of his 
ministry. The membership rose during his pastorate from 176 
in 1862, to 212 in 1871 — a net increase of 46 persons. Mr. 
Woolley removed to Pawtucket, in Rhode Island, where he is 
now settled over an important church, as associate with the Rev. 
C. Blodgett, D". D. 

The present pastor of the church was- installed February 15, 
1872. Were it not that the writer, in looking up the materials 
which enter into this history, has learned the importance of 
completeness in any account which is transmitted to the future, 
this narrative would terminate here. But if the pastor of this 
church a hundred years hence, should undertake anew the labor 
which has now been gone through, he will send his thanks 
back to his forerunners in these labors for a concise statement 
of the events of the present pastorate, should this little volume 
come into his hands. 

The parsonage, in the front room of which these lines are 
being written, was built in the preceding pastorate, largely 
through the generosity and the labors of Dea. Walter Booth, 
who gave the land and superintended the building. Very soon 
after the present pastor was installed, the church and society 
undertook to enlarge and beautify their house of worship. In 
this undertaking the foundations were removed from all the 
western portion of the building ; the ground was excavated for 
a new lecture-room and parlors, and the whole building was 



63 

extended twenty feet to the west. The interior of the audience- 
room was thoroughly reconstructed, the galleries were taken 
down and rebuilt, the present organ was purchased, and the 
choir removed from the east to the west end of the building. 
The whole cost of the reconstruction, including decoration and 
the organ, was about $14,000, the whole of which has been 
paid. The church has steadily grown until the present time ; 
the net increase being from 213 in 1872, to 263 in this month 
of March, 1877 — a gain of 50. 

At the present writing the church is passing through a period 
of revival, in which the entire city has participated, and the 
results of which can not yet be determined. The work began 
in a union of this church with the neighboring First Baptist 
church, of which the Rev. B. O. True is pastor, the two churches 
laboring together with the assistance of the Reverend Evange- 
list A. B. Earle. There have been conversions in all the 
churches — Christians have been greatly quickened, and a last- 
ing impression, it is believ^ed, has been made upon the city. 
As the work progressed, the Baptist, Methodist, and Congrega- 
tional churches united, five in all, assembling together in entire 
disresrard of denominational lines. 

At other periods during the past five years the church has 
seemed to experience a fresh baptism of the Spirit, but in gen- 
eral its history has been one of gradual, and, perhaps, too quiet 
development. It is a pleasure to write these lines at a time 
when tlie church seems, at last, after long years of struggle 
and of uncertainty, to be- established on a firm foundation, and 
to be entering with fresh hopes on a period of greater pros- 
perity than it has seen since the separation of the majority 
from it. 

The deacons of the church are at the present time as 
follows: Benjamin H. Bovce, N. B. Wood, Hobert H. 
Smith, James R. Sutliff. 

The Members of the Examining Committee, which is also an 
advisory board along with the pastor, are, besides the above 
named deacons, David Hobert, Wm. H. Yale, Mrs. H. N. 
Waters, Dr. John Tait, Miss E. A. Landfear, J. R. French. 

The following figures will show the rate of growth of the 
church since 1848: 



64 



Pastorates. 


Year. 


Males. 


Females. 


Total. 


A. A. Stevens, 


1848 


44 


82 


126 


u 


1849 


47 


^2> 


130 


« 


1850 


54 


98 


152 


it 


1851 


55 


103 


158 


11 


1852 


55 


lOI 


156 


ii 


1853 


56 


100 


156 


A. S. Cheesbrough, 


1854 


70 


107 


177 


(( 


1855 


68 


109 


177 


ii 


1856 


61 


107 


168 


L. C. Lockwood, 


1857 


60 


lOI 


161 


0. H. White, 


1858 


58 


97 


155 


u 


1859 


60 


93 


153 


11 


i860 


64 


102 


166 


li 


1861 


69 


8s 


154 


J. J. Woolley, 


1862 


67 


109 


176 


<< 


1863 


68 


100 


168 


(( 


1864 


71 


123 


194 


« 


1865 


73 


130 


203 


a 


1866 


73 


126 


199 


u 


1867 


70 


123 


193 


u 


1868 


90 


152 


242 


11 


1869 


80 


135 


215 


u 


1870 


.81 


132 


213 


a 


1871 


81 


131 


212 


Edward Hungerford, 


1872 


78 


135 


213 


(I 


1873 


80 


138 


218 


11 


1874 


82 


161 


243 


(( 


1875 


86 


170 


256 


u 


1876 


87 


175 


262 



65 



REV. JOHN HUBBARD'S CONFESSION OF FAITH, 

Copied from a printed pamphlet in the Historical Society 
at Hartford, bearing the following title : 

THE TRANSACTIONS OF THE COUNCIL CALLED 

FOR THE 

ORDINATION OF MR. JOHN HUBBARD, 

At Meridex, December 29, 1767, 

AND THE CONSOCIATION OF THE COUNTY OF NEW HAVEN, 
CONVENED THERE AT THE SAME TIME. 

New Haven. Printed and sold by Thomas and Samuel Green, 
at their Printing Office in the Old State House. 



Mr. HubbanVs Confession of His CJiristian Faif/i, ExJiibited 

to the Council. 

I believe there is one God supreme, possessed of all possible 
perfection, excellency, and glory, the Almighty maker of heaven 
and earth, and that He not only made but constantly exercises 
a universal providence and superintendency over all the works 
of His hands. That all things possible are beheld by His all- 
seeing mind in one view, and that all things are under His abso- 
lute control ; not a sparrow falls to the ground without our 
Heavenly Father ; and that God worketh all things according 
to the counsel of His will. 

I believe in Jesus Christ, the second person in the blessed 
Trinity ; the brightness of the Father's glory, that being in the 
form of God He thought it no robbery to be equal with God, 
and that as He was in the beginning with God, so He was God. 

I believe in the Eternal Spirit, or Holy Ghost, the Father 
underived, the Son begotten of the Father, the Holy Ghost 
proceeding from the Father and Son, and that they are all 
possessed of divine power and glory. 

I believe that the moral oovernment of God Most Hiffh is 



66 

absolutely perfect, and His whole administration without error. 
That God created all things by Jesus Christ, for the manifesta- 
tion of His glorious perfections, I beheve that God created 
man in His own image, and made him upright, endowed him 
with the noble powers of reason and understanding, and placed 
him at the head of this lower world ; forbid him to eat of the 
fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, upon pain of 
death ; that he rebelled against the express prohibition of God, 
and judgment came not only upon him, but upon all his pos- 
terity to condemnation, and so death passeth upon all, for that 
all have sinned ; he being the parent and head of the race, his 
transgression was imputed to them, and they suffered the evil 
consequences of his transgression, or they were made sinners. 
That God did not leave ^\ to perish under the ruins of the 
apostacy, but so loved the world that He gave His only begotten 
Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but 
have everlasting Hfe. This glorious and divine Personage, at 
the appointment of the Father, when the fullness of time was 
come, assumed our nature, taught mankind the way of God in 
truth, opened the plan of mercy, the designs of God's grace to 
our lost and ignorant race. I believe that He died upon the 
cross, an expiation for sin, that the Father laid on Him the 
iniquities of us all, and that He bore our sins in His own body 
on the tree, offering himself through the Eternal Spirit to God, 
without spot, and that the blood of His cross, or His obedience 
to death and perfect sacrifice is the meritorious ground upon 
which pardon is bestowed upon sinners, or that by Him we 
have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sin, ac- 
cording to the exceeding riches of God's grace. That He rose 
from the dead, ordered that repentance and remission of sin 
should be preached to all nations, ascended upon high, received 
gifts for men, is seated at the right hand of the Majesty on 
high; sent down the Holy Spirit upon the apostles, and ever 
lives to make intercession for His people. And as the whole 
Imman race are born of the flesh, and find a law in their mem- 
bers warring against the law of their mind, and bringing them 
into captivity to the law of sin, so in order to their eternal salva- 
tion by Christ, I believe it is absolutely necessary that they be 



67 

regenerated or born again ; this moral change T believe is 
effected by the Spirit of Gcxl, through the truth, or that they 
are born of incorruptible seed l)y the word of God, which liveth 
and abideth for ever. The necessary conditions of acceptance 
on the sinner's part are, repentance towards God, and faith to- 
wards our Lord Jesus Christ; in which are included, or from 
wliich flow all the graces of Christianity : for the gift and exer- 
cise of which they are indebted to God, they are His gifts. 
Yet in the ordinary method of God's grace, they are obtained 
by a diligent use of all the means God hath appointed in His 
Word, and that in the neglect of these we have no warrant 
from the Word of God to expect the saving blessings of His 
grace. I believe the necessity of the sanctitication of the 
Spirit, as well as the belief of the truth, in order to our enjoy- 
ment of the favor of God hereafter, and the possession of those 
mansions which Christ by His obedience and death hath pur- 
chased, and is now gone to j^repare for the heirs of salvation, 
for without this none shall see God. I believe that all those 
who are called according to God's purpose, are particularly 
foreknown and predestinated, and justified upon account of the 
righteousness of Christ, depended upon by them, and imputed 
to them, they receiving Him as exhibited to them, as the Lord 
their righteousness, and they shall be glorified, and that neither 
death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor 
things present nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor 
any other creature shall be able to separate them from the love 
of God, which is in Christ Jesus. And in the important busi- 
ness of religion, weak, insufficient man is absolutely dependent 
upon the influence of the Spirit of God. For it is God that works 
in us, both to will and to do, and without the grace and strength 
of Christ, we can do nothing, but through Christ's strengthening 
of us, we can do all things. And that all necessary grace is pur- 
chased by Christ, and freely offered to men with the call of 
the Gospel : so that all who liv^e ungodly, and die impenitently, 
must take the blame to themselves, and ascribe their eternal 
damnation not to any constitution of heaven, or deficiency of 
God, or the Redeemer, but to their own perverseness and ob- 
stinacy ; and their own consciences must for ever vindicate the 

Lora 



68 

righteousness of God in their perdition, while on the other 
hand those who by the grace of God comply with the offers of 
His mercy, will for ever ascribe their salvation to the pure, 
rich, and unmerited love of God and the grace of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, who loved them, and washed them in His blood. 
I believe the resurrection of the dead, and that God hath ap- 
pointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteous- 
ness, by Jesus Christ, whom He hath ordained judge, both of 
quick and dead, who will render to every one, according to the 
deeds done in the body, whether good or bad. That the 
righteous will be received to glory and the wicked punished 
with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and 
the glory of His power. These I take to be taught in God's 
Holy Word, which I believe to be the only rule for Christians. 

Meriden, Jan. i, 1768. 
This is the confession of faith read by Mr. John Hub- 
bard, Jr. 

Test: JOHN DEVOTION, Scribe. 

Jan. I, T768. — After reading and delivering in the foregoing 
confession of faith, Mr. Hubbard gave answers to questions 
that were asked him, as follows : 

Q. In your confession of faith, speaking of Christ, you say 
that He was in the beginning with God. What do you mean 
there, by in the beginning.'^ 

Ans. Before all time ; coeval with the Father. 

Q. What do you mean by saying, Christ is God ? 

Ans. That He is properly a divine person, possessed of 
divine glory. 

O. What is meant by the Spirit's, or Holy Ghost's, pro- 
ceeding- from the Father and the Son ? 

Ans. He proceeds in a manner different from what any 
creatures do, and in such a manner that he is strictly eternal, 

O. As there are Three Persons in the Godhead, are they 
all properly speaking One God? 

Ans. Yes. 

Q. How are we sinners by Adam's transgression? Is it 



69 

as we stand related to him as the head of the family? and so 
do we derive from him family or relative guilt ? 

Ans. Yes. 

O. Do you believe that in consequence of the sovereign 
judgment of God, whereby we are all subjected to death, all 
mankind would have been finally ruined and for ever lost, if a 
Mediator had not been provided ? 

Ans. Yes. 

O. Do you believe that if any of the human race are deliv- 
ered from this state of guilt, condemnation, and death, it is by 
the sovereign grace of God, on account of the righteousness of 
Christ ? 

Ans. Yes. 

Q. Do you suppose that the present state of human nature 
is such, that without the influence of the Spirit and grace of 
God we should live and grow up in wickedness, and finally 
perish ? 

Ans. Yes. 

Q. Do you suppose that these influences of the Spirit 
would have been given to any if it had not been for the pur- 
chase of Christ ? 

Ans. No. 

Q. By liberty do you mean that we have a natural and prac- 
tical ability to do all that is required of us in order to salvation, 
without the special influence of the Spirit of God ? 

Ans. No. By saying we have liberty of will, I mean no 
more than that we have such liberty as to constitute us moral 
agents and accountable creatures. 

Q. Do you beheve that by the new covenant and promise 
of God saints have secured to them all that is necessary to their 
perseverance and final salvation ? 

Ans. Yes. 

Q. Do you suppose the promise of God is so to be under- 
stood as to secure assistance in the neglect of dnty ? 

Ans. No. 

O. Do you suppose the good works of believers are the 
ground of their right and title to eternal life ? 

Ans. No. 



70 

O. Are the good works of believers the ground of their 
election to eternal life ? 

Ans. No. But the mere grace and mercy of God. 

O. Do you believe that any works done, or that can be done, 
by natural men, are accepted as gracious works ? 
• Ans. No. 

O. What do you understand by regeneration, or conver- 
sion ? 

Ans. It is a change of both heart and life from sin to holi- 
ness by the influence of the Spirit of God. 

O Is there an inward change previously necessary to the 
performance of good works acceptable to God ? 

Ans. Yes. 

Q. Do you not suppose that God has predetermined the 
final condemnation of impenitent sinners in consequence of His 
foresight of their willful wickedness ? 

Ans. Yes. 

Q. Does not true faith include (over and above an assent to 
gospel truth) a dependence upon Christ for salvation ? 

Ans. Yes. 

Q. How is this faith wrought .'* Is it not by the influence 
of the Spirit of God given by Christ .'* 

Ans. Yes. 

Q. Tho' it is by the influence of the Spirit of God that 
any are enabled truly to believe and do works spiritually good, 
yet does this destroy moral agency ? 

Ans. No. 

These are the questions asked by tlie council, and answers 
given by Mr. Hubbard, in the audience of a large concourse, 
with full liberty, publicly offered to any, to ask any other ques- 
tions, or to have an explanation of those already asked. 

Test: JOHN DEVOTION, Scribe. 

The council (besides the foregoing transactions with the 
consociation), having received particular and full information 
of the state of the church and society in Meriden, came to the 
following result on Friday evening, Jan. i, viz : 



71 

That altho' in our opinion, it is the undoubted and unaliena- 
ble right of every church to choose their own pastor, or in- 
structor, in righteousness, and altho' Mr. Hubbard api)ears 
to be well qualified to do service in the churches of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, both as to his abilities and religious sentiments, 
(so far as we have been acquainted with them by his examina- 
tion and confession of faith) if he should be improved therein ; 
yet, considering the broken and divided state of this church 
and society, and other unhappy circumstances, we don't see 
our way clear to proceed to his ordination at present. 

Passed in council 

Test: J(^HN DEVOTION, ) c: -i 

JOHN WHITING, j^ ^^ribes. 

This is, I believe, the first time that the above confession 
and examination of John Hubbard have been reproduced. It 
has been a matter of great interest to learn, over what Jwresy 
this church and the colony were so long kept in turmoil. The 
supposition, offered in the second of the foregoing sermons, 
that there was nothing in Mr. Hubbard's belief wiiich would 
render him unacceptable to any congregation of ordinary intel- 
ligence at the present day, seems to be fully confirmed by the 
discovery of this document. The Confession of Faith is i)re- 
ceded in the pamphlet by the correspondence between the 
consociation and the council. The council met at "Madam 
Hall's,'" probably meaning the home of Theophilus Hall's 
widow, on the present Avery Hall place. The consociation met 
at some place not specified, but two miles distant from the 
council. 



72 

BASIS OF CHURCH MEMBERSHIP. 
At a church meeting held May i, 1873, it was voted, with 
but one dissenting voice, to do away with the previously exist- 
ing doctrinal basis of church membership, and to substitute 
for it the following 

Form of Christian Profession and Covenant, 
to which, alone, applicants for admission to the church are re- 
quired, after examination by the committee and acceptance by 
vote of the church, to give consent : 

CHRISTIAN PROFESSION. 

In presenting yourself (yourselves) for membership in Christ's 
Church, you do now publicly profess your hearty faith in God, 
who is revealed to us in the gospel as Our Father in Heaven ; 
and in Jesus Christ His only begotten Son — the Saviour of the 
world, — who died for our transgressions and rose again from 
the dead, and huml^ly confessing your sins, you do now in the 
presence of these witnesses solemnly avow the consecration of 
yourself (yourselves) to God and His service in the observance 
of all His commandments as set forth in His Holy Word ; de- 
pending on the gracious influences of His Spirit for your com- 
fort and strengthening in all godliness. 

COVENANT WITH THE CHURCH. 

You do also covenant to walk with this Church in christian 
fellowship and in the conscientious performance of the mutual 
obligations of its members and in the ordinances which Christ 
has enjoined to be observed by His people. You engage to be 
subject to the discipline of Christ's Church in general and this 
in particular, so long as God continues you here. 

RECEPTION BY THE CHURCH. 

We then, the Church of Christ in this place, declare you to 
be a member of Christ's Church in general, and this in particu- 
lar ; and promise by divine help to treat you with such affection 
and watchfulness as your sacred relation to us requires. This 
we promise, imploring of our Lord that both we and you may 
obtain mercy to be faithful in his covenant and glorify Him by 
the holiness which becometh His house for ever. 



73 

DATE OF ORGANIZATION. 

The following Preamble and Resolution, setting forth the 
facts relating to the date of organization of this church, were 
adopted in a full meeting of the church, held on Easter Sun- 
day, April I, 1877 : 

Whereas, At the time of the separation of the majority 
from this church, in the year 1848, a strong pressure was 
brought to bear upon this church to induce it to yield its title 
to be considered a church without a new organization, as is 
shown by the following resolutions passed at different times 
and entered upon the records, as also by an act of the council 
ordaining the Rev. A. A. Stevens pastor over this church, 
which resolutions and act of council are as follows, namely : 

" At a meeting of brethren of the Congregational Church in 
Meriden, held in the basement of their church on the 13th day 
of January, 1848, the following preamble and resolution were 
presented and passed unanimously : 

" Whereas, A majority of this church, together with the 
pastor, have left us and taken the church records ; therefore, 

^''Rt'sok-ed, That in consequence thereof, the regular administration of public wor- 
ship and religious ordinances will not be suspended in this house ; but that we who 
remain, now proceed with our present 'Confession of Faith and Covenant,' in all 
church duties and ordinances: " 

this preamble and resolution being marked upon the record 
as " rescinded Jan. 24," and the action of the next meeting be- 
ing recorded as follows : 

" Monday, Jan. 24, 1848. 

"The brethren of the church met agreeable to vote of the 
last meeting. 

" The first preamble and resolution passed at the last meet- 
ing were reconsidered and rescinded, and the following pream- 
ble and resolution were passed unanimously: 

"Whereas, A majority of this church have voted to re- 
move to their new meeting-house, arid the pastor has given 
notice to that effect, and also given notice that his relation as 
pastor to us who remain has closed, therefore, 

7 



74 

^''Resolved, That we still are a Church of Christ; and though for substantial 
reasons we waive our rights as being The Congregational Church of Meriden, and 
we hereby assume the name of, and will hereafter be known as, the Center Congre- 
gational Church of Meriden, and still holding to our church ' Covenant and Confes- 
sion of Faith,' will go forward with the ordinances regularly administered : " 

this resolution not having been rescinded, the record goes 
on as follows : 

"Another meeting was called Feb. 17, 1848. The follow- 
ing preamble and vote were then passed : 

" Whereas, A majority of the Congregational Church of 
Meriden have built and occupied their new house of worship, 
and whereas the former house is preferable to us, therefore, 

'^^ Resolved, That we who remain to worship in the old house, do associate and pro- 
ceed as a Church of Christ, by the name of the Center Congregational Church of 
Meriden, with the present ' Covenant and Confession of Faith,' to sustain all church 
duties and ordinances." 

"The above resolution was passed in consideration of the 
following declaration of the pastor of the Congregational 
Church : 

" If the preceding vote should be passed, I should feel au- 
thorized to comply with the wishes of those who assent to it, 
and enter their names on our record as having their connection 
with us terminated. G. W. Perkins." 

"March 15, 1848. 

" At an Ecclesiastical Council convened at the house of the 
Center Congregational Church, by letters missive from the 
Center Congregational Church in Meriden, to take into consid- 
eration the expediency of ordaining to the gospel ministry Mr. 
Asahel A. Stevens, an inquiry was then made by the council 
into the authority of the brethren calling this council to act as 
a Church of Christ ; whereupon it was resolved that in view of 
the following act of organization, without reference to any pre- 
vious documents, viz : 

" Whereas a majority of the Congregational Church of 
Meriden have built and occupied their new house of worship, 
and whereas the former house is preferable to us ; therefore, 

^^ Resolved, That we who remain to worship in the old lu)use do associate and pro- 
ceed as a Churcli of Christ, by the name of the Center Congregational Churcii of 
Meriden, with the present 'Covenant and Confession of Faith,' to sustain all church 
duties and ordinances." 



75 

'• This council rccou^nize the brethren so a,2:reeing as having 
thereby become a duly orijanized Church of Christ." 

And Whereas, From the first two resolutions, and from the 
ambiguous language of the third resolution, in which the non- 
ecclesiastical term ''associate," is carefully chosen as an am- 
biguous term, agreed upon by the parties purposely to avoid 
the usual word "organize," it is evident that this church re- 
garded itself as never having ceased to be a church since the 
original organization in 1729; 

And Whereas, By the concurrent testimony of those still 
living among us, wlio were conversant with the doings of that 
time, and some of whom were present at the council, it appears 
that the church had not previous to the council conceded — nor 
did it, notwithstanding the language of the council (which lan- 
guage was purely the council's own, and in no way binding 
upon the church), at the time of the council concede, nor has 
it since conceded that it has ever ceased to be a church, nor has 
it ever had an organization since 1729 : 

Therefore, in the liglit of this history, and for the informa- 
tion of the public, 

/\6'so/7U'(/, That we do as did our fathers, date the organiza- 
tion of this church from the year of our Lord, 1729. 

Attest : 

CrEo. K. Flint, Clerk. 



[VIAY86 1908 



fp 



